The unrest in Karbi Anglong is not merely another episode of law-and-order failure in Assam’s troubled hill districts. It is a warning - clear, unsettling, and impossible to ignore. When protests escalate into violence, and the house of an elected Chief Executive Member is set ablaze, the issue ceases to be local. It becomes a mirror held up to the State itself.

At the surface, the conflict appears familiar: indigenous land rights versus alleged encroachment. But beneath that narrative lies a far more complex and uncomfortable truth. This is not a battle between citizens and foreigners. It is a confrontation between Indians between constitutional protections for indigenous communities and the lived reality of internal migration, poverty, and displacement.

A Crisis of Coexistence

Karbi Anglong sits within the Sixth Schedule, a constitutional promise meant to protect tribal land, identity, and autonomy. Indigenous Karbi anxieties about land loss and demographic pressure are neither imaginary nor illegitimate. They are rooted in history and codified in law.

Yet the people branded as “outsiders” are often not invaders in the conventional sense. Many are landless labourers, marginal farmers, or families displaced by floods, erosion, or economic collapse elsewhere in Assam and the Northeast or the mainland. They are Indian citizens searching for survival, not conquest.

When the State treats such a collision of vulnerabilities with blunt instruments, evictions without rehabilitation, force without dialogue, it turns a legal issue into a moral crisis.

The Shrinking Middle Ground

Assam once had a fragile but functional middle ground where disputes over land and identity were negotiated through time, work, and accommodation. That space is shrinking rapidly. Every debate is forced into binaries: indigenous versus outsider, rights versus illegality, protection versus encroachment.

The burning of the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council Chief’s residence symbolises not just anger, but a breakdown of trust between communities and institutions, and between people and the promise of governance itself.

Where Does Humanity Stand?

If eviction is necessary to uphold constitutional protections, then humanity demands that the State answer a simple question: where will the evicted go?

A constitutional democracy cannot merely declare who does not belong; it must also articulate where dignity and survival will be ensured. Evictions without rehabilitation do not solve conflicts; they displace them geographically and postpone them politically.

Without a structured resettlement framework, today’s evicted family becomes tomorrow’s “encroacher” elsewhere. This cycle does not defend indigenous rights; it destabilises the entire State.

The Silent Anxiety of the Unprotected

There is another, less discussed consequence. What message does this send to the General and OBC communities who do not enjoy Sixth Schedule or ST protections?

If land security increasingly depends on constitutional categories alone, millions may begin to feel politically orphaned and legally exposed. Such insecurity does not remain passive. It hardens identities, fuels resentment, and creates new fault lines, often sharper and more volatile than the old ones.

A state where protection is perceived as selective risks, turning identity into armour and citizenship into a hierarchy.

The Choice Before Assam

Assam is not choosing between indigenous rights and humanitarian responsibility. It must uphold both. Law without empathy breeds rebellion; empathy without law breeds chaos. Only their balance sustains peace.

Karbi Anglong is not an exception; it is a preview of what is to come. The questions it raises will surface again in other hill districts, forest fringes, and borderlands unless addressed with courage and care.

The real test for Assam is not whether it can enforce the law, but whether it can do so without losing its humanity. If it succeeds, it may yet become a model for a diverse and restless India. If it fails, today’s unrest may quietly become tomorrow’s norm.